Share This Story!

Elvis was Mississippi-made

Made in China. Made in Mexico. The souvenirs our Virginia visitors bought at the Elvis birthplace museum in Tupelo, Mississippi, all were made far away in other countries, and I’m wondering why. Elvis wasn’t ma

Elvis was Mississippi-made

Made in China. Made in Mexico. The souvenirs our Virginia visitors bought at the Elvis birthplace museum in Tupelo, Mississippi, all were made far away in other countries, and I’m wondering why. Elvis wasn’t made in China. He was made right here in Mississippi.

I am sitting in an Elvis shade on an unbelievably pleasant summer’s day while my young friends tour the little Tupelo house that does more to explain the phenomenon that was Elvis than the grander Graceland up in Memphis ever will. I have toured the place a dozen times or more over the years, so today I wait outside.

And sitting gives me time to think thoughts that I’ve about worn out. Why are we Americans sluggish in competing with other countries in manufacturing televisions or cars or toys when we dominate the market of imagination? Why are we better at weaving dreams than cloth? Why, in America, is it somehow better to be on the cover of People magazine than to win the Nobel Prize for chemistry?

OK. These are curmudgeonly thoughts for such a beautiful day. But I examined the guest book on the way into the gift shop. This month alone, the tourists came from all over the world. How many will leave with a U.S. souvenir, if you don’t count the postcards distributed from Bethpage, Tennessee?

About 10 years ago I took a container ship from Savannah, Georgia, to Valencia, Spain. After spending a month in Europe, I returned on another work ship traveling from Antwerp, Belgium, to Chester, Pennsylvania. On the trip over, the containers were 80 percent empty. On the return, the containers were all full. It was a vivid, floating illustration of the state of our union’s export-import situation.

Yet we dominate the dream market. It’s wonderful to be in France and mention that you’re from Mississippi and have a native say: “Mais, oui! That’s where Elvis was born. I know Mississippi.”

Elvis and Robert Johnson and Johnny Cash and John Wayne and many other creative individuals have given form to the void and put a recognizable face on Uncle Sam. In France they sell James Dean blue jeans and in Ireland host “Hee Haw” hootenanny night at the pub. American celebrities have long shelf lives in other countries, perhaps longer than they have here.

But not every American can croon like Elvis or write like Faulkner. And the rest of us need jobs. Most of my Louisiana friends worked for the Fruit of the Loom plant, which moved from St. Martinville to Honduras, not as alligator hunters featured on reality television shows. Some of my Alabama relatives toiled for the textile mills that moved where labor is cheaper, or for paper mills that have disappeared.

It’s hard to believe that people would work for less than they did, for instance, at long-gone furniture factories or garment plants here in Tupelo. But they will. And do. Without the basic requirements of a safe workplace that pays at least a near-living wage, it’s Katy bar the industrial door.

And so Americans can hope to be born with Peyton Manning’s arm or Taylor Swift’s lungs or Elvis’ staying power. Those made-in-America things will ensure a good living for, let’s see, Peyton Manning, Taylor Swift and Elvis’ estate. And living vicariously through those stars of the entertainment world will keep our minds off of niggling concerns like paying the rent and our grocery bill.

In America we’re free to do anything, to become anything we want -- so long as what we want is not a secure job that assures a middle-class existence. But we can dream. We’re in the dream business, after all.

Rheta Grimsley Johnson’s most recent book is “Hank Hung the Moon … And Warmed Our Cold, Cold Hearts.” Comments are welcomed at rhetagrimsley@aol.com.